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Chapter
One
The Viet Nam war ended with the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops in 1973-five
years after my birth. Over a million lives were lost. Through that crime
against humanity emerged John Lennon and “Imagine,” a song
that rocked organized religion to its foundation, gave solace to some
and nightmares to others. Lennon and artists like him inspired a peace
movement that spread like wild fire. Hippies in headbands with guitars
slung over their shoulders wandered around spreading seeds of unity in
philosophical, metaphorical terms that older folks were not ready to hear.
They wanted to keep everything the way it was “in the olden days.”
Cut, dried, purified and radical-free. Radicals meant anyone whose feet
were firmly planted in the clouds.
The air was charged with revolution, but not necessarily the kind where
people wanted to rise up on their hinds and blow the crap out of one another.
Most of the current generation had seen enough war and felt it was time
for change.
While they were preoccupied with idealistic dreams of peace, offset by
the scandal of Watergate, the kidnapping of Patty Hearst and nuclear testing
somewhere in India, people in ‘hoods across North America were dying
on their front doorsteps and in their beds from AIDS, malnutrition, …diseases
and conditions you would have expected to find in Ethiopia. There were
all kinds of crusaders fighting for the rights of many, up to an including
the whales, but nobody seemed to give a damn about ghettoes full of dying
blacks right here in the gold old U. S. of A.
My ’hood was like an exploded nest of maggots
infesting the core of the Big Apple. In the middle of it was our house-a
small green and white box in Queens, eternally decorated with Christmas
lights that worked the first year they went up but never again. The place
was a decrepit heap of twisted wood and chipping paint. Nobody in our
‘hood had the money to maintain their properties or get the grass
cut, and we had the worst one of all. We had no grass. Just mud and dirt
and a rusty old garage, dead washers and dryers, piles of dog crap all
over the place and no room for the dog to run.
If you walked three blocks in any direction you’d find a playground
with broken swings, rusted monkey bars and eighteen-foot handball courts.
These places were full in summer and empty in winter except for homeless
bums and winos.
It was a town of buses, trains and working class families with grandmas
taking care of most kids my age because their parents were dead or missing
in action. I was lucky to have both parents and all of my immediate family
still living. I had five sisters and a brother before my aunt Trishia
became a junkie. We called it “got sick.“ My folks took in
her three kids, raising our grand total to an even dozen. Ten kids and
two adults in a tiny three-bedroom house. Of this group, Malik, my biological
brother, was my treasure. He was eighteen months younger than I was, and
I thought of him as a gift from God, a toy to play with at first, and
a best buddy as we got older. We did everything together.
My parents, Grace and David Samuels, were as different from each other
as the sun and the moon, one setting in the west while the other crept
up, dark and frightening, into the night. Mom was a devout Catholic who
abandoned her dream of becoming a nun in order to marry my father, but
Jesus kept her heart and soul. We got her body. She wore God like a skin
and seemed to be appealing to His mercy every minute of every day, and
spent most of her time in bed, reading the Bible.
When you’re a kid you don’t think too much
about world affairs or where you fit into the big picture. I grew up knowing
that blacks were not accepted and that was just they way things were,
but sometimes it takes a jolt to make any truth hit home with force.
A little brown dog snapped everything into perspective for me in the spring
of ‘77. Every night Malik and I sat at the window in the living
room, watching the action outside. We were always on lock-down, never
allowed to go roaming the ’hood like the other kids. That particular
night they were raising hell out front. The atmosphere was volatile, intensified
by loud, pounding music with home-made flash lighting effects and base
drums reverber ating through the dark. Boogie Oogie Oogie, One Nation
Under a Groove echoes in my mind.
Malik and I were so caught up in the action that neither of noticed our
dog, Bones, running around on the crowded street. The mood out there seemed
almost festive to me. I loved it and wanted so badly to be a part of it.
Soon, I kept telling myself. They’d cut me loose soon. They couldn’t
keep me holed up inside the house forever. I bided my time.
Dad hated what went on outside but he didn’t say much except to
mumble, “stupid street mentality.“
The kids split like the Red Sea as a blue ‘69 mustang burnt rubber
up the street. My heart almost stopped when I saw Bones flying through
the air. My brain registered it in slow motion. I watched in disbelief
as he hit the side of one of the dead washers in our front yard, landing
in the mud. The accident went unnoticed by anyone except me and my six
and a half year-old brother. We were so shocked we didn’t scream,
cry, nothing. When we raced outside, the rest of our family followed.
It wasn’t like anything I had ever seen. Bones was all twisted,
bloody, legs swollen like...I can’t even describe it. Malik and
I knelt beside our dog. We were scared to touch him, scared to hurt him
more. I bit my lip to keep from showing any emotion because Dad didn’t
approve of that, but Malik’s eyes filled with tears, one of them
slipping down his cheek and glistening in the flash lighting.
Everything became a blur to me. I vaguely recall that the world kept spinning
around us, with teens shooting dice on the curb, playing in the traffic
and raising a ruckus. Bones whimpered, fighting for every shallow breath
while his broken body trembled and his paws jerked.
Agnes, one of my sisters, said, “We should call a vet.”
“Can’t afford it.” My father said, in passing. He was
on his way to work, dressed in his usual faded t-shirt, sweat-pants and
dirty running shoes. “Call the ASPCA. Say we don’t know who
he belongs to. S’more than anyone else’d do.”
“Dad, no!” Malik pled. “They’ll keep him-”
“Stop that cryin’.” Dad growled at him. “What
are you, a freakin’ girl? That dog’s gonna die anyway. Look
at him! So is Syn, someday. One of you two boys is gonna die before you’re
twenty-five. Someday your Mom and all your sisters are gonna die, too.
Take it like a man. You might not like hearin’ the truth but someday
when I’m dead and gone you’ll know I never lied to you. Now,
somebody call the ASPCA.” On that, he turned and went off to work.
The Master had spoken. Different members of my family ran back and forth
to use the phone inside the house. We called the ASPCA repeatedly and
waited for somebody to show up. Time dragged by, and nobody came until
after Bones died, about thirty calls later. They dumped his body in back
of a black truck that they would normally use to confine stray dogs, and
drove off.
I had seen this kind of thing before. A “meat wagon” would
park in front of somebody’s house, roll a body out in a black bag
on a gurney, stuff it in back of a truck and then drive off. I made the
connection then, that it was the same thing with cops. When somebody died
they didn’t show up till the body was on its way to cooling.
I realized fully in that defining moment, that nobody outside our community
really gave that damn if our dog lived or died, and cared even less if
we did. It really hit home then, that the world wanted to forget us. They
wanted us to be invisible. They wanted us dead.
Malik shot inside the house and up the rickety old, unfinished stairs.
I ran after him. Lying across the bed on his stomach, he grumbled, “I
hate him.”
“Yeah.” I sat on the bed next to his feet and looked around
at the dump we called our bedroom. It was tiny, the wallpaper faded to
the color of parchment, with huge patches peeled back, the flaps exposing
the grimy, cracked plaster and boards underneath. Roach hotels. The whole
place was like that, and it stank of mold and dust because there were
piles of green bags everywhere, stuffed with dirty fermenting laundry
that had been collecting for years. The washer was always broken. I said,
“Ima grow up someday and Ima be bigger’n him. Ima whoop is
fat ass.”
Malik rolled on his back. “He’d kill ya.”
“I’ll get him in his sleep, like Jack and the Bean Stock.”
“Who’s gonna die ‘fore twenty-five? You or me?”
“Nobody. He’s nuts. Forget it.” I dug into my pocket
and pulled out a long cigarette butt that I had found on the street the
day before, and lit it. “He used one of his Dadisms on me this mornin’.”
“Which one?”
“The Captain must go down with his ship.”
Malik sat up and wiped his eyes. “What’s that mean?”
“I dunno.” I shrugged and passed the smoke over to him. He
waved it off like he always did. I added, “Who in his right mind
would stay on a freakin’ sinkin’ ship? Only some big fat shit
like him, who‘d float after it sunk. Pigeons’d be landin’
on his gut, thinkin’ he was an island.“
When Malik started laughing, I knew he was going be okay. I was glad to
see that and I laughed with him, but I meant it. I was going to get Dad
back someday.
By morning, I almost forgot how much I hated my Dad
the night before. The pendulum always swung and by the time that six-foot-four
giant walked in at a quarter to ten that morning, he was my hero again.
I was so proud of him because he had a job with a title. Dad was a typesetter
and proof reader for the Brown Company in the Village. He only earned
a fraction of what white men made for the same job but he was brilliant
and well-spoken, and that impressed me.
Every one of us knew the routine. We all went to the back door to meet
him, whether by love, obligation or habit, I don’t know. We all
gave him his kiss and then Agnes, crept off to make him a huge grilled
cheese sandwich. That was what he had every single day. A grilled cheese
and strawberry yogurt with fruit at the bottom. The only one who didn’t
run to greet him was Mom, and that was because it was Sunday and she was
getting ready to haul us all off to Mass. Mom was already making plans
for my near-future and that was to sign me up as an Altar Boy. I didn’t
even want to think about that.
I reached up and wrapped my arms around his enormous belly, loving the
feel of his hands rubbing my shoulders. His hands were big, dry and hard,
like a dog’s paw pads. Malik grabbed him from the other side and
he reached back to give him a few rough pats before he broke free from
both of us. He marched through the messy kitchen and into the dining room
while the girls wandered off to get ready for church. My brother and I
followed Dad while he spoke.
“Did Bones die?”
“Yeah.” I said.
“Thought so. What’d you do with him?”
“The guys from the animal shelter took him.”
“After how many calls?”
“About thirty.” I said.
“Figures. Your mother getting ready for Mass?”
“Yeah. The girls too.”
“Hm. I hate people who wear Christ on their shirts. They’re
here to try and fool us like the crusaders who came with Christian crosses
and swords.” He dropped into his favorite chair at the head of the
table—a huge office table that he found at Mom’s school where
she got her Masters in Nursing. That too was an impressive title that
made me proud but just like Dad, she worked twice as hard for a fraction
of the pay, so where we should have been making a decent living, we were
barely scraping by.
Dad’s end of the table was piled high with heaps of crap, like a
can of STP Motor Oil, his tool kit, tape, papers, mail, check stubs, winter
scarves, you name it, it was there. He’d kick our asses if a single
thing got moved. Nobody could sit in his chair. Ever. Not even when he
wasn’t home. He always knew it if somebody broke that rule. After
he got seated Agnes crept in to place a glass of orange brandy at his
elbow, and snuck out. She always tiptoed around like somebody was watching
her. And somebody was. Dad’s critical eye remained fixed
on her till she left the room, then he turned to look at me and Malik.
We knew what he wanted. I started rubbing his arm while Malik rubbed his
back. He had a huge scar under right his arm from a gang war when he was
a teen, and that limb was numb most of the time due to nerve damage that
had never healed. While he sipped his brandy, he said, “Did I ever
tell you about the Black Panther Party?”
I was immediately spellbound because I knew another great story was on
the way. “No.”
“I’m not a member of the Party but I support the cause. They
want equality for all men, even those in minority groups. Even blacks.
Imagine that.”
“Can’t.” I said.
“Well, neither can I. But the Panthers base the role of their party
from the tenets of Maoism while at the same time attemptin’ to achieve
the capitalist economic system and embracin’ the ideals of Marxism.
Those’d be hefty concepts for a poorly educated black man to grasp,
‘specially ones bred down from generation to generation on the Plantation
Slave mentality, but I never swam in that gene pool. My folks were British
Honduras and Jamaican, not of the slave ancestry. I grew up knowin’
that knowledge is power. Are you getting’ any of this?”
I nodded, but back then, I didn’t have a clue what he was talking
about. But it sounded fascinating.
He went on, “I was born here in New York in 1939, and when in Rome,
you do as the Romans do. I was raised in turbulent times by a woman who
taught me the rules of segregation, keepin’ me out of establishments
whose signs read, No Nigahs Allowed. You think you got it hard, boy? You’re
all pussies these days. Back then we had to sit at the back of the bus
and use only the dirty, stinking washrooms designated for Nigahs. Lynchin’
was the sport of the day, but that was mostly in the south. Up this way,
racial gang wars corrupted the city streets at night.”
“Didn’t your Dad look out for ya?” I asked.
“My Dad….pfff!” He scoffed down at me, emptied his glass
and slapped it, conclusively, onto the table. “He bounced after
the war. Disappeared. Your Grandma helped Uncle Doug get his green card
by becoming his wife.”
“Oh.”
“Haven’t you ever wondered why you call her Grams and him
Uncle, and the kids they had together, you also call your aunts and uncles?
That don’t seem off to you?”
“Never thought about it.” An image of Uncle Doug flashed in
my mind. I had seen him lifting weights in Grams’ yard plenty of
times. No shirt. He looked like shiny onyx rock with slicked-back black
hair.
Dad went on, “He was the one who made me into a lion. There was
never any love lost between me and him, or between me and Mom either,
because I do things kinda like my absentee father. She hates that about
me.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Malik glanced at me around the side of Dad’s enormous bulk, with
raised eyebrows. I knew exactly what he was thinking. She hates you
‘cuz you ain’t all that likable.
Agnes crept through to deposit his breakfast on the table and left. He
didn’t touch it right away but changed the subject, “Boy,
Ima tell you…anytime you want to learn about anything, go straight
to the source of knowledge. Never believe everything you hear and even
question what you think you see. Always think for yourself.”
“Okay, but what if the person tellin’ me stuff is smart? What
if he knows-?”
“Why the fuck you askin’ shit like that?” He grumbled
and pressed his lips together. “You don’t question me, butt-face.
You question them.”
Malik got bored with the whole thing and left. He hated it when Dad started
flashing his “bigness.” Dad looked at me and said, “Hey,
boy, I got a question for you, though. If we’re at war in a dark
jungle runnin’ and shootin’ Vietnamese people, and they got
me in the leg—do you leave me or try and carry me?”
This question hit me like a brick and I started bawling. “Dad, I
would carry you to safety, man. I would drag you and kill anyone who came
close till help came.”
The big lion growled, “Hell, no, boy! Wrong! Your
job is to come back, put the gun in my mouth and shoot me or we both
get caught!”
I ran upstairs to my parents’ bedroom, where I found my mother brushing
her hair. “Mom, do I have to kill Dad if we go to war?”
She yelled, “David, please stop telling this boy your sick dreams!
It's not good for him!” and refocused on her reflection in the dusty
mirror.
I went back down for more, wiping my tears because Dad hated that crying
stuff. He looked me straight in the eye with a sharp, penetrating gaze
and said, “Nigah, this is real, man. I’m gonna have a stroke
and that’s what’s gonna take me out one day. I’ll die
April 6th, 2003. You’re gonna have to be the one to pull the plug
so don't let them girls make you a pussy, boy. Death is good and I’d
hate to be a vegetable.”
Death was good. Death. He praised it like it was the best thing on earth.
He said, “If you live right and never kill ‘less you have
to God will understand. Never die on your knees. Take it like a man. Grow
up strong and respectful.”
I nodded and sniffed.
He picked up his sandwich and howled, “Agnes! You damn Frankenstein!
You cut my sandwich crooked again!” And then at me, “Go get
cleaned up. We’ll be leavin’ for church soon.”
* * *
As soon as we entered the tall, arched doorway of the
Catholic Church in our community, Dad pressed his lips together, gestured
toward the priest and whispered to me and Malik, “That guy is not
your Dad but we all call him Father. It’s just a title.”
I nodded and followed my Mom and sisters down the aisle. The place was
already full and smelled like a funeral parlor, with the thick scents
of burning candles, wood polish and old women’s perfume in the air.
Since it was Lenten Season, the Altar had been stripped and the mood was
somber. I remembered the lesson I had learned the night before, about
how we blacks were less than dogs, and noticed that the crowd was predominantly
white. They openly stared at my family as we quietly searched for a pew
that would hold all of us. They stared like we were a circus show and
the normal state of quiet that lives in all churches, suddenly became
so amplified I could almost hear my own heart beating. The aisle seemed
a mile long.
I didn’t want to look into the eyes that hated me for my color,
and I didn’t want to look away either, since that would have betrayed
weakness or made me look guilty for something I hadn‘t done. So
I brick-faced them, glared back with no expression whatsoever, as we passed
pew after pew. But inside I felt like crap. That day, I saw these whites
as people in power and deep down I despised them for making me feel like
I was stripped naked and being forced to bow to their superiority the
way Dad had told me that black slaves in history had done. I was angry
and sad at the same time because I thought they would love me if only
they took the time to know me.
But the lines were drawn. They lived in their world and I lived in mine.
Our paths crossed when we had to share the same sidewalk…or the
same religion.
Malik must have felt it too, because he fumbled for my hand. I took it
and I held on for dear life. Even at eight years old I had a sick feeling
down deep in my gut that he was never going to make it out there when
we were finally cut loose to roam the ‘hood.
We finally found places to sit. Seven in one pew and five in another a
few rows up. Malik and I sat with Mom, Dad and Asia. I missed most of
what went on for the first part of Mass but went through the sit, stand,
kneel and pray motions. I was still preoccupied with thoughts of our dead
dog, the stuff Dad had told me about the Black Panther Party…and
the day that he predicted he was going to die. I had never heard of anyone
predicting the date of their own death before but there was no question
in my mind at all that it would come to pass exactly the way he said it
would. When it did, it would happen one day after Malik’s birthday.
And…someday, I would have to be the one to “pull the plug.”
What did that mean? I really didn’t know but it scared me, because
I had a feeling it was similar to putting a gun in his mouth if we went
to war--and pulling the trigger.
* * *
The next day, when I came home from school I knew I was in trouble the
minute I walked through the door. The whole family was standing around
in the kitchen as if they had been waiting for me. Their faces were somber.
My five older sisters, Agnes, Azeris, Alana, Ameenah and Asia, stood in
a line up along the counter with their backs to the cupboards and their
heads down, staring at the torn up, old lino on the floor. The three kids
my folks had adopted were lined up along the other counter. Malik rushed
over to stand in front of me, as if to protect me.
Dad stood in the other doorway, staring at me with dark steady eyes. He
didn’t have to speak. He gestured with his head for me to follow
him, so I did. The rest of the gang trailed after me because they knew
I was about to get spanked and Dad never did that without an audience.
He always made everyone stand around and watch it like it was a slave
hanging.
My heart was banging in my chest as I followed him into the living room,
and my knees turned to rubber as he reached down beside one of the armchairs
to pick up his “paddle.” He said, “Your teacher called.
Said you were makin’ fun of her in class.”
I was guilty of all charges but I lied. “I didn’t do it.”
“She said you and a few other boys said she looked like Miss Piggy,
and you made oinkin’ sounds behind her back.”
“I didn’t do nothin’.” I repeated.
As he started whistling a sick Mr. Softie Ice Cream tune, Alana jumped
between me and Dad, and cried, “Dad, please don’t! Just give
him another chance! Please, Dad?” The other girls piped up, saying
the same thing. Malik joined the chorus of hopefuls.
“What?” Dad whispered, his eyes scanning the group
accusingly. He thought this was mutiny. He loved us sticking together
but not against The Master. He was The Master and we were his dogs. Whipping
dogs.
Well, I got it anyway and I got it bad. And after he got done with me
he grabbed Alana, pulled down her pants and beat on her until he had no
more power left to fry anymore ass. After that he left the house without
a word.
It’s so ironic, because I remember a commercial for The Walton’s
running in the background, on a small black and white television that
was a messed up as we all were.
These beatings were regular occurrences in our home. Almost everyday,
somebody got it. If a beating wasn’t earned, Dad would randomly
pick a kid and make him do forty push ups in front of the family like
a drill Sergeant, ridiculing or beating us when we screwed up. Another
favorite of his was that he’d order us to move all the furniture
and junk out of the way so he could make two of us fight like a couple
of wild-ass wolves while everyone stared in horror.
After he left, Alana went up to her room and the rest of the girls followed
her to commiserate. I very gingerly walked over to the window to peer
outside. My ass was on fire. I hated him again, and one more time I secretly
swore that I would get even someday.
Malik followed me. He leaned an arm on the window sill and rested his
cheek on it, then gazed up at me. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” I lied. I was not okay. I was hurting all over, inside
and out. But I would never let myself show it because Dad had spent eight
years coaching me to be tough and take everything “like a man.”
“Wish we could go play outside.” He said. “I’m
bored.”
“Me too.” I looked out at some kids rolling dice on the sidewalk.
“Malik, y’know what I’d like?”
“What?”
“Someday, you and me, we gonna go fishin’. We gonna buy us
a cabin in the woods, have some kids of our own, and all of us, we gonna
go fishin’.”
“A cabin in the woods?” He smiled the sweetest smile.
“Yeah. Snow all over the place. Like those places we see on Christmas
cards. Snow and lakes and fishin’. Get the fuck away from all this…pain.”
“That be cool, Syn.”
“Yeah. That be so freakin’ cool, bro. So cool. We gotta do
that someday.”
“Okay.”
“Promise me.” I said.
“I promise.”
I passed a hand over the top of his hair, like he was a good puppy. “That’s
my boy.”
I didn't speak to Dad for two days.
Tennis was a big thing in our family. Once you got some
used rackets from somewhere it was a cheap sport to keep up, so we all
played. And we all got very good at it. After two days of the silent treatment,
Dad finally took me to play a game at one of the nearby parks. I was still
mad at him so I deliberately missed every ball.
After about a half hour of this, he came over to me and said, “Syn,
what do you want me to do, man? If I was wrong for beating you, I'm sorry.
But I want you to be so good that the teachers won't even think you could
do something like that.”
I looked away from him. Hell with you, asshole.
Dad got down on his knees like he was praying, kissed me and said, “I
love you. Man, I am sorry, okay?”
I forgave him on the spot. We played a few good games of tennis and then
headed for home.
After dinner that night he took me and Malik aside, and told us to make
some space in the living room. After we finished pushing some furniture
aside he said, “Down on the floor. Both of you. Forty push-ups...”
Stay
tuned for updates on the release of "It's A Quiet Thing: The Life
of Syn," tentatively scheduled for early summer, 2009.
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